


All We Have are these Stars on the Ceiling

by Locaven



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Chara and Asriel are not siblings, Fluff, Gen, Gender-Neutral Chara (Undertale), Other, Pre-Canon, Semi-Soft Chara, Soft Chara (Undertale)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-25 13:21:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18575308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Locaven/pseuds/Locaven
Summary: Chara prepares a special gift for their best friend.(Can be taken platonically or romantically at this point, it really doesn't matter)A birthday gift for my good friend, rainy-poppy on Tumblr. Feliz aniversário!





	All We Have are these Stars on the Ceiling

"Chara! Chara, look!"

Asriel stood in one of the aisles of the New Home grocery store -- the one that sold miscellaneous items from the surface, most of which had been scavenged from the trash heap at Waterfall. He was holding a cardboard box that had been rendered mostly unreadable by its trip down the underground river, but he was clearly happy with its contents.

Chara told the monster at the cash register to wait a second and walked over to him.

"Here." He held out the box in front of them. "Are these what I think they are?"

The human child examined the outside of the box, leaning forward to look through a little plastic window in the front. From what they could see, it was full of--

Stars.

Greenish, glow-in-the dark plastic stars of varying sizes. The kind one would find at a cheap toy store. Chara just had to hope these weren’t of the toxic kind, or they might have been drinking poisoned water for who knows how long.

"We do not need these, Asriel," they said flatly. "We're here for groceries. Food and supplies. You should not let yourself get sidetracked."

"Aw, but _Chara,"_ he whined, still clutching the box in his fuzzy paws. "They look so cool. The box says they glow in the dark! I didn't even know humans _had_ stuff like that!"

"We do not," they scoffed, trying to gently pry the useless item from his hands. "This is just a cheap gimmick."

“Still, they look like stars, don’t they?” he asked, refusing to let go. Instead, he tilted his head and gave them that look they couldn’t bear to see longer than a few seconds. “Can’t we keep them? To remind you of the surface?”

“The surface that I’ve told you _several times_ I would rather never see again. Sure,” they replied sarcastically, giving him a different kind of look that _they_ had perfected. “You know how I feel about such things, Asriel.”

“And _you_ know how I feel about space,” he retorted. “And my birthday is in two days, this would’ve been a nice present. But alright, Chara,” he added with a sigh, reluctantly putting the box back on its shelf.

Chara rolled their eyes, honestly a bit amused by Asriel’s surprising skill at being passive-aggressive. They would never have thought to hear that from him of all people, but it was a side of him they liked to glimpse every so often.

Then, they moved on to the next item on their shopping list.

As far as both of them knew, that was that. Chara might mention it to Asriel’s parents later for... reasons, but nothing they had to concern themself about.

Then again, wasn’t the best way to do things to do them yourself? They had no reason to make this Asgore and Toriel’s responsibility. Not when _they_ spent hours every day sitting around and doing nothing. They might as well make themself useful in a way they liked.

Unbeknownst to Asriel, as soon as he had paid for the groceries his parents had told them to get, Chara stayed behind just long enough to exchange the box for a few gold coins and carefully hide it under their sweater as they hurried to catch up with Asriel outside.

\---

The next day, Asriel was running errands with Asgore, and Toriel was taking care of regular business in the throne room, meaning Chara had the whole place to themself. They knew exactly what to do. The moment they had been waiting for had come sooner than expected - which was a good thing, because Asriel’s birthday was now only one day away. Eleven hours to be exact - or even less, seeing as the fluffy prince wouldn’t give them nearly enough time alone to prepare the surprise once he got back home.

The human kid looked through Toriel’s bookcase, determined to find the book they knew she had. The one Asriel had begged to see since before he was old enough to understand the words in it.

Finally, up on the highest shelf, they found it.

They needed one of the chairs from the kitchen to reach all the way, which caused them to silently curse their small human body. Why was everyone else in the castle so damn tall?

Once they had it in their hands, however, they rushed over to the children’s bedroom and closed the door behind them.

As soon as they had found the right page, they began charting everything out on a few pages of Asriel’s old sketchbook: which stars were the brightest, what time of year to represent  -- they at least wanted to put both their and Asriel's zodiac signs, Taurus and Pisces respectively, in the picture -- and even which planets would be visible from atop Mount Ebott.

Finally, after a few hours of meticulously checking and double-checking everything, they lay their drawings out on Asriel's bed and took out the box they had bought. Looking at the clock on the wall told them they had about two hours left until Asriel would come home. They got to work immediately.

An hour and a half later, Chara wiped the sweat off their forehead and climbed down from the chair they had been standing on, careful not to let it fall off Asriel’s bed and take them down with it.

The ceiling had been transformed into a -- relatively faithful, if their memories were anything to go by -- replica of the sky above Mount Ebott during springtime. They placed their hands on their hips, admiring their own handiwork for a while before deciding to test if it actually worked.

They walked over to the light switch next to the door and, after a moment of anticipation, flicked it.

As expected, the windowless room was immediately bathed in darkness -- except for the plastic stars, which glowed just strongly enough to be clearly visible without also illuminating the ceiling around them.

Chara smiled, nodding to themself. Everything had worked out according to plan. All that was left was to show it to Asriel... and to make sure he wouldn’t see before the time was right.

\---

The rest of the day was spent in much the same way as any other. Since just a few days after they had fallen down, Chara had claimed the armchair by the fireplace whenever Toriel wasn’t using it; and they spent many an evening reading through the few novels Toriel had.

Meanwhile, Asriel lay with his belly on the carpet, with his feet sticking up into the air and his chin resting atop his left paw, the other one busy drawing something or other.

However, Chara had trouble focusing on their book today. After several minutes of trying and failing to absorb any of the words from its pages, they sighed and put it aside. Instead, they leaned over the armrest and watched their monster friend.

He was engrossed in his work, his tongue sticking out of his mouth a bit in between his fangs. His little tail twitched and wagged whenever he thought of a new detail to add to his totally awesome original character, and sometimes Chara thought they heard him hum snippets of some song they’d heard recently.

Chara wasn’t even interested in the drawing yet. For now, they just wanted to watch him.

Maybe Asriel felt their eyes on him, or maybe they had made a noise when shifting in their seat, because he looked up at them just in time to meet their gaze.

“Hey, you want some paper too? Here.”

Before Chara could even respond, Asriel was already waving an empty sheet in front of them.

They might as well, right? After all, they had plenty of time to kill before bedtime tonight, and if they didn’t want to spend several hours just staring at the goat monster they could join him instead.

The human child flopped down onto their belly next to Asriel, “borrowed” a few crayons from him that he wasn’t even using anyway, and got to work.

Toriel’s voice calling them to the dinner table ended up actually startling them. They looked around and, much to their relief, found Asriel still lying on the carpet, looking similarly startled.

Both left their unfinished drawings lying there.

\---

All throughout dinnertime, Chara feigned ignorance whenever Asriel poked and pried about what they had gotten him for his birthday tomorrow. He seemed to have totally forgotten about yesterday, which actually came in handy. Less for them to slip up about.

Asgore and Toriel were also being mysterious, but in a different way. They refused to let their son know anything about the “surprises” they had prepared, because as Asgore said, “finding out is half the fun!” But at the same time, they _did_ tell him they had surprises. Chara was much more discreet: now that Asriel didn’t even know about _their_ surprise in the first place, that saved them both a lot of frustration.

“You both ought to go to bed on time today,” Toriel told them afterwards. “Tomorrow is going to be a long day. We’ll have an official celebration.” She waved her paw, smiling. “But of course, we do that every year. You know how it goes.”

“Yeah, mom,” Asriel replied. He would usually be grumpy about being sent to bed early, but this was a special case where he didn’t really mind. The sooner he slept, the sooner his birthday would start! He could hardly wait!

“Yes, Toriel.” Chara faked a yawn. “I am feeling very tired anyway.”

After wishing his parents goodnight as usual, they changed into their pajamas, brushed their teeth and hair, and entered their and Asriel’s bedroom. They immediately placed a chair in front of the door to block it.

Asriel spent much longer getting ready for bed than they did, what with him having an entire fur’s worth of hair to brush, but they wanted to make sure he wouldn’t barge in unexpectedly. After all, they had to make sure everything was still in order.

Much to their satisfaction, all the stars were still on the ceiling as they had left them, and none of them had even gotten remotely loose. The glue they had used was strong enough.

Just when they removed the improvised barricade -- or _chair_ icade, as Toriel would have called it -- the doorknob was turned and in walked the soon-to-be birthday boy.

He only got to see a brief glimpse of the room before Chara threw their sweater over him.

Asriel yelped in surprise and started removing the makeshift blindfold, but Chara gently pressed their hands against the sides of his head.

“Shh. I am doing this on purpose. Follow my voice.”

They led him to his bed, making him sit down on it before stepping back. “Keep your eyes closed,” they instructed.

“Okay!” Asriel finally pulled the sweater off his face, but did as he was told, squeezing his eyes shut. A giddy smile spread across his muzzle and his ears twitched in anticipation. So they had a birthday gift for him after all! “What are you gonna do, Chara?”

“You will see.” They didn’t know why, but they were also smiling. And they hadn’t even revealed their surprise yet.

Looking over their shoulder after every other step, they walked over to the light switch, flipped it, and went back to Asriel’s side.

“Alright. Open your eyes.”

The goat boy’s eyelids parted, and for a moment he stared blankly ahead. Then, he got used to the sudden darkness, noticed the glow from above, and tilted his head back.

His red eyes now reflected the green spots of light above him, almost creating another night sky in his pupils.

He fell backwards, sprawling on the mattress and continuing to gawk up at the ceiling.

"Wow..."

Chara lay down next to him and joined the “stargazing” session. Sure, his reaction wasn’t the overjoyed one they had hoped for, but their surprise had definitely worked.

Asriel swallowed. “Did... did you make this?”

“Yes. Happy birthday,” they added.

“With the-- those are the _stars!”_

Chara let out a quiet laugh. “They are. I bought them when you weren’t looking.”

“It looks like... does it actually look like the real sky?”

“Kind of. Stars are shaped like dots, not... these. But I _did_ arrange them like the real stars above Mt Ebott this time of year.”

That made Asriel sit up and gawk at them instead. “This time of year? You mean the real stars _change?!”_

“Yes,” Chara hissed, gesturing for him to calm down and lie back down. “But it is nothing spectacular. I chose this version of the sky because it is today’s sky. Your birthday sky,” they added as an afterthought.

“That’s weird.” Asriel snickered softly and lowered his head back onto the pillow.

They spent some time going over the different stars and zodiac signs, with Chara relaying everything they remembered from the book and Asriel hanging onto their every word. Both spoke in hushed voices, staying awake way past their bedtime but still tucked in cozily under the blankets.

Their conversation shifted onto some other topics as well, like the seasons and how day and night worked. All of them were among the few things about the surface that Chara could appreciate, and even missed sometimes. Talking about them not only made Asriel happy, but in a strange way, themself too. It almost felt as if tonight was _their_ birthday too.

When they had run out of things to ask and say, the two children lay in silence for who knew how long, just gazing up at the starry ceiling. At some point, neither of them really knew when, Chara’s hand found Asriel’s paw and squeezed.

Finally, Asriel slowly turned his head to smile at his forever best friend.

“Chara? Thank you,” came his mumbling voice.

But Chara had already fallen asleep.


End file.
